Launching a token

Everything happens on the Launch page. You pick a mode at the top, fill in the form, approve two transactions in your wallet, and your token is live.

You need two things first: a wallet connected to Arc, and a little USDC in it — enough to cover the $1 launch fee plus gas. If you have neither, the Bridge page points you at Circle's faucet for testnet USDC.

Which mode should I pick?

If you're unsure, pick Meme. It's the simpler path and nothing about it is worse — Utility Tokens exist for creators who specifically want a tax mechanism, not as an upgrade.

Meme (Quick Launch)

Your token deploys straight onto a real pool with its full supply already in it. No curve, no waiting for graduation, and no tax logic inside the token itself.

What you fill in

• Coin image — upload one (or drag and drop). Optional, but a token with no art shows a plain grey placeholder everywhere it appears, which does it no favours.
• Name and ticker — "Sushi" and "SUSHI". The name is the human one; the ticker is the short all-caps symbol.
• Description — optional, shown on your token's page.
• Total supply — how many tokens will ever exist. Anywhere from 1 to 10,000,000,000. There's no "right" number: supply and price are two sides of the same coin, and market cap is what people actually compare. More supply just means each token is individually cheaper.
• Fee recipient — the address that receives your share of every trade's fee. Defaults to your connected wallet. You can split it across several addresses, and change it later from My Launches.
• Social links — optional X, Telegram, Discord and website links, shown on your token's page. Each is checked for the right shape, so a Telegram link has to actually be a Telegram link.
• AMM venue — Uniswap V3 or SushiSwap V3. See AMM venues; Uniswap V3 is the sensible default.
• Dev buy — optional. Buys some of your own token in the same transaction as the launch, so you get in at the opening price before anyone else can. The form shows you roughly what percentage of supply your amount would get.

What it costs

• $1 launch fee, in USDC.
• Gas, a small amount, also in USDC (Arc uses USDC for gas).
• Your dev buy amount, if you chose one. Optional.

That's the whole cost. You are not required to contribute any liquidity: the pool opens holding 100% of the supply and $0 of real USDC. USDC only enters as people buy. Your token's starting market cap is $3,000.

Utility Token (Advanced)

Instead of opening on a pool, your token starts on a bonding curve — a contract that sells tokens at a price which rises as more are sold, and holds the USDC it takes in. When the curve has collected $25,000, the token graduates: the curve closes, and that $25,000 becomes the liquidity of a real, permanently-locked pool.

Starting market cap on the curve is $1,000, lower than a Quick Launch, because the curve is designed to be climbed.

Everything Quick Launch has, plus:

• Additional buy tax and sell tax — your own tax, on top of the standard 1% every token carries. Minimum 1% each, set independently, so you can charge more to sell than to buy (or the reverse). These are the two sliders at the top of the Tax settings card.
• Tax allocation — where your extra tax goes, split across four buckets: Creator, Burn, Dividend and Liquidity. The four always add up to 100%; drag one slider and the others rebalance rather than letting the total drift. There are also three preset buttons (DeFi, Yield, Treasury) if you'd rather not think about it.

What those four buckets actually do is covered in Fees & tax, and the two that need a follow-up step are covered in Forges.

What it costs

Same as Quick Launch: $1 plus gas, plus an optional dev buy. The difference is that a dev buy here goes through the curve rather than a pool, and the form shows you the exact number of tokens that buy will return — not an estimate, but the real curve maths run ahead of time.

After you hit launch

You'll approve two transactions: one letting Arcantis move the USDC for the fee (and your dev buy, if any), then the launch itself.

Then:

• Quick Launch takes you straight to your token's page, already trading.
• Utility Token stops at an optional step first, offering to attach a Forge. You can skip it and do it later — nothing is lost by skipping.

From then on, your token appears in My Launches, where you can edit its image, description and links, collect the fees it has earned, and manage Forges.

Things worth knowing before you launch

• The AMM venue is permanent. Chosen at launch, never changeable.
• The launch type is permanent. A Meme token can't become a Utility Token later.
• Your tax rates are set at launch and are part of the token contract.
• Supply is fixed forever. There is no mint function — not for you, not for Arcantis. See Security.
• The fee recipient is the one thing you can change afterwards.